The paperback of Invisible Rulers is out today! To celebrate I dropped audio of the Twitter Space where Mike Benz first groomed Matt Taibbi into believing there'd been "mass censorship" of "hundreds of millions of tweets"—something he'd then testify before Congress. open.substack.com/pub/agentsof...

When Matt Taibbi Met Mike Benz

How independent media turned an obscure political operative into a "whistleblower"—and his claims into government action.

open.substack.com

Dropped an episode of my podcast today. It’ll be on your podcast apps mañana. My guest is Phil Cousineau, author of The Wisdom of the Odyssey: 24 Life Lessons from Homer’s Epic. Our convo takes a #mythological & #archetypal look at the poem. #Jung #myth youtu.be/qIlhM5Ll5XM?...

Episode 15 - The Wisdom of the Odyssey with Mythologist & Writer Phil Cousineau

YouTube video by Humans on the Verge with Kelly Carlin-McCall

youtu.be

Happy Dogust, everybody.

Really enjoyable and informative interview with @michaeldthomas.bsky.social covering the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy (online) publishing right now: https://skiffyandfanty.com/podcasts/865uncannymagazine/

Congratulations to all the World Fantasy Award finalists! Great ballot this year.

2026 World Fantasy Awards Finalists

The World Fantasy Awards ballot for works published in 2025 has been announced. The awards will be presented during the 2026 World Fantasy Convention, scheduled for October 22-25, 2026 in Oakland C…

locusmag.com

Personally I would love to see Bluesky expand. It shouldn’t just be the app for leftists who can’t stand Matt Yglesias! It should also be the app for liberals who can’t stand Matt Yglesias. And apolitical folks who can’t stand Yglesias. And, yes, even conservatives who can’t stand Matt Yglesias!

@benburgis.bsky.social and I discuss why socialists can have a more realistic conception of human nature than competing traditions today at 100 m.youtube.com/watch?v=fWDi...

Socialism and Human Nature (ft. Matt McManus)

YouTube video by Give Them An Argument w/Ben Burgis

m.youtube.com

Posts like this mean so much to me! Getting a story published is such an intense experience, knowing that there are hundreds of people out there reading my words. Thanks to all who take the time to not only read, but tell me their reactions! #writesky #writersofbluesky #scifi

Anna Clark@annaclark.bsky.social · 4d ago

"As the Tide Loves the Diver, as the Diver Loves the Tide" by @ravn-j-silver.bsky.social is a wonderful end to my Saturday of reading. We are perhaps in an over information age, and this imagines an entity that would save us from it, for better or worse, but it is also a story of deep affection.

The August issue of Clarkesworld is now online and features stories by Ravn J. Silver, Eilis O’Neal, Jordan Alexander, D.A. Xiaolin Spires, E.N. Auslender, Y.M. Pang, and H.H. Pak. clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_239 Subscribe today at: clarkesworldmagazine.com/subscribe/

Remembering those heady days when the term “ceasefire” was widely regarded as connoting a cessation of fire

@doctorow.pluralistic.net Cory: I heard you talking to Jon Stewart about readers who point out typos, and perhaps I shouldn’t join the chorus of such individuals, but for the ebook of “Reverse Centaur’s,” this sentence can be fixed: “My whole writing career has been a serious of Centaur moves…”

I owe much to Twain. He's Hot Type's Zelig. Through him, I explain typesetting & publishing, the sad failure of the machine he backed, his Gilded Age, the search for mass-media business models, and his disillusionment with technology. Out August 20. jeffjarvis.com

New blog entry: On the non-use of AI in my writing process: www.antipope.org/charlie/blog...

This is really demented. And Google's response is incredible, amounting to something like, Every extremely misleading image that didn't need to exist in the first place made by our dearest Gooberboo can be verified to be fake by means of a mechanism nobody will ever use. We're sure you'll love it!

Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images

"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."

404media.co

I've written a longer piece on the book that's been pulled due to "AI" use allegations, what that means particularly for newer authors, and what, if anything writers can do in the "AI" era to prove their work is their own: whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/31/a...

Another Reason Not to Use “AI” For Your Writing

Back in February I did a long post about “AI” and why I wouldn’t use it for my own writing, and one of the reasons I gave was “the fact that ‘AI’-generated text …

whatever.scalzi.com

Am informed that various US ebook retailers currently have *Written On The Dark* for $1.99. It *should* be hard to say no.

Holiday in the climate emergency. No that’s not AI or edited, just a snapshot I just took with my phone on Lacanau beach in France. What future will this boy grow up in? It is in our hands, but time is running out.

We are very pleased to have @pnh.nielsenhayden.com as a featured program participant at #LAconV. He was a full-time SF & fantasy editor at Tor Books for 37 years. For his original anthology Starlight 1 (Tor, 1996), he won a World Fantasy Award; he also won three Hugo Awards for his editorial work.

I used a lot more acrylic inks on this one, letting the inks pour and run across the paper and then painting over the top of them once they dried. I really like the effect! "All That Will Grow" Watercolor, acrylic ink, gouache, and color pencils.

Julie Dillon@juliedillon.bsky.social · last mo.

Working on a new piece; thinking about star thistles, how in the western US they are an invasive and noxious weed that readily takes over land that has been disturbed and degraded. or something.

I finished the illustrations for @nkjemisin.bsky.social 's "The World We Make" special edition from Subterranean Press a while back but it's finally out! One of my favorite interior illustrations:

I'm heartbroken to share that Marvin (known to readers of There Is No Place for Us as Maurice) died earlier today in a workplace accident. He was 43. Natasha (Natalia in the book) asked me to share this news because she is too devastated to do so herself. We are all in shock.

Trump has signed an executive order to impose 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian exports," from wine to hockey sticks to cement," says a senior administration official.

Trump's new 50% tariff to hit even CUSMA-compliant goods | CBC News

U.S. President Donald Trump is moving to impose tariffs of 50 per cent on a wide range of Canadian exports, a dramatic ramping up of his trade war against his northern neighbour.

cbc.ca

Jake Arnott's THE LONG FIRM, Vikram Seth's A SUITABLE BOY, George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH, RD Blackmore's LORNA DOONE, Vikram Chandra's SACRED GAMES, Paul Kingsnorth's THE WAKE

Louie Stowell@louiestowell.bsky.social · 2w ago

What are the books you yammer on about to anyone who'll listen? In the kidlit sphere it's Boss of the Underworld, The Boy to Beat the Gods, City of Stolen Magic and Donut Squad for me!

Mindscape 361 | Bonnie Bassler on How Bacteria Talk and Work Together. Quorum sensing is one of the vivid differences between even the simplest organism and non-living stuff. #MindscapePodcast preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026...

ideological bias in corporate media operates at the story selection and story framing level — which makes it more insidious

Sports betting online ruins lives and ruins sports.

Dissent Magazine@dissentmag.bsky.social · 3w ago

More than a quarter of American adults have a daily gambling habit, 42 percent of bettors have said they spend more than they should, and a majority of men ages eighteen to forty-nine have an active account with an online sportsbook.

Also in recommendations today, Ann Leckie published a fantasy novel (!) in 2019 and it is an absolute banger. Ending reminded me of Blood Simple, narrated in second person by a rock YEAH YOU HEARD ME

The Raven Tower

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 WORLD FANTASY AWARDGods meddle in the fates of men, men play with the fates of gods, and a pretender must be cast down from the throne in this masterful first fantasy novel fr...

bookshop.org

Currently reading On Courage, by @juliaangwin.com and @fieldsmeyer.com. Helluva book.